Scary Church Signs

Ok, so I was driving down the road yesterday and saw a church sign displaying the following message:

"No mask can hide your sin from God."

True statment; bad use of church sign.

I guess since it's Halloween, this sign is meant to communicate, "Oh sure, you can put on your masks and eat candy and all that, but don't think you're fooling God! He still sees that you are a sinner. ...That's why you're wearing the mask, right?... To hide your sin from God?... Yeah. Well you can't do that. You're kidding yourself. That candy may be sweet, but hell is hot!....You... you...spawn of the devil!"

Alright, so maybe it isn't meant to communicate that. A Little exaggeration on my part, there. Chill out, people. Just having a little fun here. No need to get stakes and torches to storm my blog castle. :-) I'd hate to have to turn off comments here like Gary Lamb had to do after a post about fall festivals!

So anyway, I kept driving along and literally 4 minutes later I passed another church with the exact same phrase on their church sign!

Now that's scary.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: "The canned sayings have got to go."

[Disclaimer: I'm sure they are a great church with great people and I'm sure they mean well. I'm just talking about the issues, here, folks. We should hate the sign but love the signer.]

Book from across the pond

Have to give a quick public "thank you" to Martin Strickland in Combe Martin, North Devon, United Kingdom, for surprising me a few weeks ago with a book from my Amazon wishlist! I now have "Louder Than Words" by Andy Stanley and am looking forward to reading it.

I've never met Martin, but he lives in a very beautiful part of England. Here's a sample image from his blog:
Very nice.

My "Guitar in the wall" post from several weeks ago apparently cracked him up, and he decided to make my day.

That he did.

Thanks again, Martin!

Idiot Email Snafu

Ok, I'm an idiot.

I can't believe that I made such a goof up. Such a snafu.

Somehow in the setting up of the Compass contact email last November, I did something wrong. To make a long story short, last night I discovered 35 emails that had been sent to info[at]compasswired.com that we never received.

Some of those emails were from people who were very interested in our church...back in January.

Yeah.

I'm an idiot.

If you sent an email to us at that address and didn't hear back from us, that's the reason.

I've responded to those stray emails, but really - after 9 months, the prospects have a tendency to get a little cold.

"Oh, Technology...I love thee yet hate thee....But can't really blame thee, because in the end it was me." - Sir Johnny Da Idiot Snafu

Rats.

I'm going to bed.

Another Amazing Weekend

The "amazing weekend" from my last post was apparently so amazing that I was left blogless for over a week! Actually, if you’ve had trouble reaching me, I apologize. We’ve had a few technical (read financial) difficulties with a few services this week. :-D Hey, I'm just keeping it real, here, folks...

Another great weekend coming up for Compass and the Leckie Family, however.

Friday night:

We’ll be serving at the Harvest Ridge Neighborhood “Fall Festival.” My family will be wearing the Compass Church “colors” and handing out flyers about our Family Movie Night on the Green. Incidentally, another family in our church will be doing something similar at a festival in their new neighborhood.

Saturday:

AM - Leona and I will be administering the ACT test to High School students in the morning. (The SAT went fine, by the way.) Before long, we will have given all of the alphabet tests out there….

PM -
"Family Movie Night On The Green." (Thanks, Scott Whitaker, although unbeknownst to you, for the cool "on the green" part of the name!) This is shaping up to be a cool but simple event. We’ll be showing the movie, “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” outside in the park across the street from the Roanoke Rec Center. We’re also showing a short promotional video trailer about our church before the movie:

“The following preview has been approved for all audiences by the people who are bringing you Family Movie Night on the Green…”

Another cool side note about this event is that we had 400 glow sticks and bracelets donated by a friend of Compass. Should be a fun surprise to our guests. But to you, it's just another reason to be there. :-)

Sunday:

AM –
“Ever After: Creating A Marriage That Thrives” Series continues. I'm taking a different angle on this topic than I have used in the past. I'm diggin' it.

PM –
Crash on the couch with Leona and watch disk 4 of Lost Season 2.

An Amazing Weekend Ahead

This is going to be an amazing weekend. Full to overflowing, schedule overlapping, non-stop excitement.

I hope I survive it. :)

Here are the highlights:

Friday:

* Hopefully, our new T-shirts arrive (Navy blue and simple with a cool compass on the sleeve).

* Because of Saturday afternoon & Sunday morning (see below), we will be frantically cleaning our house, doing laundry and polishing things up.

Saturday:

* Leona and I are administering the SAT test for high school students from 7:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Every extra penny's currently very precious. :-)

* Compass is serving at a big community event called, "Celebrate Roanoke" and the team is supposed to arrive at 11:30 a.m. Overlapping of schedules kick in here...

* Leona and I will grab a quick lunch on the way from the SAT, pick up our kids and meet up with the team around 1:30 p.m. We'll remain at this event till after 8:00 p.m.!

* During the event, we'll also be distributing flyers about our upcoming "Family Movie Night on the Green."

* Leona's parents arrive sometime in the afternoon. Hence, reason one for the aforementioned cleanup.

Sunday:

* Team setup at the Rec Center at 7:00 a.m. New series kicks off today and Kim is back to lead worship. Yay to that!

* Volunteer/Team run-through/worship service at 9:00 a.m.

* Public Worship Service at 10:30 a.m. (Biggest highlight of the weekend)

* Somewhere during the middle of the service, Leona's parents are picking up her brother from the airport. Hence, reason number two for the aforementioned cleanup.

* After teardown, we finally arrive home around 1:10 p.m. or so, visit with company, and eat a late lunch together.

* Afternoon - Company heads to Oklahoma; Leona and I crash on the couch. (Second biggest highlight of the weekend)

Cooler weather has rolled in, there's much to do and enjoy, and it's great to just be alive. I'm looking forward to what God does as we blast through a weekend of service, worship and relationship building.

Maybe I'll have an amazing story or two to tell sometime after the Sunday nap. :-D

Updates ahead...

West-room

On a lighter note about my trip to Louisiana, there was a very kind church who provided a meal for my family following the Memorial Service. And it was a truly classic southern meal including fried chicken (of course), deviled eggs and potato salad. It was some seriously delicious and comforting food, and the hospitality was awesome.

But I have to tell you about the restroom. It was decorated in the most cowboy-western style imaginable. From the ropes, cowboy statues, and pictures on the wall to the wooden fence style stalls, it was a fun sight to see.

But the cattle skull by the urinal took it to a whole new level.

I had to get my brother, Kenny to snap a couple of pictures and send them to me on his cool new xpress mail camera phone pda thingy.

I would say, "Only in Texas," but this was Louisiana. :-D

I mean no disrespect; I just thought it was a hoot.

Check it out:

My Uncle Vince

I was out of town all day on Wednesday for a memorial service for my Uncle Vince, who passed away a week ago.

The service was held in Ida, Louisiana (pop. 258) in a little church near where my Granddad lived till his death in the late 80's and where my mom spent her childhood years. The church has a big iron bell on a pole that is still used on Sunday mornings.

My brother Bill did the officiating and did a great job under the circumstances. Vince's body had been cremated and the ashes placed in a box that he had crafted himself. Following the service in the church, we walked across the street to the cemetary where Vince was buried at the foot of my Grandpa's grave.

My uncle lived a pretty wild life, including a reported period of time in the Bandidos motorcycle gang, sleeping in caves on occasion, getting in barfights (involving a stray bullet or two), and generally pushing the limits of most of the boundaries in this life.

But he was always kind to my brothers, sister and me, and the few times we were able to see him in the last ten years or so, he always went out of his way to tell us that he was proud of us.

It seems like just yesterday we were wrestling and playing football with him in the front yard of my house as kids in Shreveport. Just thinking about that is a great reminder to me that this life is truly a blink of the eye (James 4:14) and that every day is precious. It's also a reminder that we will all stand before God one day. All of us, without exception.

We are told by my mom that her brother made a decision to follow Christ and was baptized as a boy, but honestly, only God knows the condition of his heart when he stepped into eternity.

I'm hoping for the best. May God's grace abound.

So long, Uncle Vince. I hope with all my heart to see you on the other side.

How about you? Are you ready for the ultimate appointment?

In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day

Mark Batterson serves as lead pastor of National Community Church (www.theaterchurch.com) in Washington, D.C. and is a daily (and I do mean daily) blogger@ www.evotional.com.

Mark is a sharp guy who often falls into the "bloggably linkable" category around here. Genuinely nice, he's a creative pastor who has been one of my prayer partners along the way and is a fellow coffee connoisseur.

He also chases lions.

Into pits.

Snow be danged.

And of course, this is one of the reasons I like him.

His new book, "In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day," is inspired by one of the most obscure yet courageous acts recorded in Scripture (II Samuel 23:20-21):

Benaiah chased a lion down into a pit. Then, despite the snow and slippery ground, he caught the lion and killed it.

Here's a "stand out" quote from chapter one:

"What sets lion chasers apart isn't the outcome. It's the courage to chase God-sized dreams. Lion chasers don't let their fears or doubts keep them from doing what God has called them to do."

Having been in a few pits myself a few times, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of Mark's book!

It's available to all as of today - Order it from Amazon here.